Signing to Eminem’s Shady Records venture hasn’t always been a sureshot recipe for creative success — but Compton MC Boogie’s first release for the label presents him as a confident and likable rap voice.

Everything Bassekou Kouyaté does celebrates Mother Earth. On the four strings of his n'goni, the ancestral lute of the griots (bards), the musician uses his new album Miri to write the dream of a reconciled Mali – dedicating the result to the late Kassé Mady Diabaté.